Season's Greetings
Ansible 197 (December 2003) saw a rare return of Hazel's Language Lessons, with the splendid Greer Gilman providing a selection of essential words from Shetland dialect. Your cruel editor cut this for space reasons, and Greer has since browsed further in that invaluable sourcebook A Glossary of the Shetland Dialect by James Stout Angus (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1914). So here are many more useful phrases for the tourist. Merry Christmas! – Dave Langford
- aber knot, a mystical knot; a knot on a wrestin treed [...] made in three strands, with three knots on each strand. Such a thread applied to a sprain, while the prescribed incantation is muttered by the operator, is an infallible remedy.
- abunbuird, without reserve; openly admitted or disclosed.
- acht, a valuable possession.
- adnasjur, a large wave, or waves, coming after a succession of lesser ones.
- aes, a blaze, a blazing fire.
- afbreg, to alter the ear-marks of a sheep.
- afrinnens, the heaviest part of the refuse of corn, which falls on the tail of the flakki when corn is being fljuget.
- afrug, the reflex of a wave after it has struck the shore.
- aftak, a disparaging insinuation; a sarcastic remark; an innuendo; a snub. The discontinuance of a spell of bad weather.
- ag, the choppy motion of the waves when they come near to a weather shore; the agitated motion of the sea when it has met an obstruction. Eagerness.
- akker, fragments, minute particles; especially corn trampled by animals or broken down by the wind.
- alikrogi, a weakly animal that cannot stand the cold, and so is addicted to crouching under shelter.
- aliplukkens, wool taken off the belly of a sheep.
- almark, an animal that cannot be restrained from trespassing on arable land; a sheep that jumps over dykes or breaks through fences.
- ammerswak, a state of turmoil.
- amos, a dole promised to some indigent person on condition that some hoped for good comes to the person who promises.
- amp, anxiety, watchfulness; v.a, 'to amp'.
- andu, to keep a boat in position by rowing gently against wind or tide.
- anklovan, sea-name for fire-tongs.
- anniwhart, uneven, unsteady, changeable as the wind.
- ansable, heedful, attentive, obedient.
- baa, to sing a lullaby.
- ballisten, a round sea-worn stone of such size as may be easily handled.
- bankstership, compulsion.
- barber, a haze which rises from the surface of the water with a very keen freezing.
- bard, a bold, high headland; a scolding woman.
- barfljug, to separate ears of corn from their stalks without crushing the corn.
- breekbridder, when two men are courting the same woman, each of them is breekbridder to the other.
- brennik, a parhelion, a mock sun.
- brimfuster, sea-froth.
- brimskud, the vapoury, smoke-like haze which rises from the shore-bretsh.
- dagalien, the evening twilight.
- ere oy, a great-grandchild.
- essi, defiled with ess.
- etterkap, a spider; a contentious, spiteful person.
- faan upon, beginning to show signs of decay, as fish or flesh.
- faasface, a mask.
- feevi, snow falling in large flakes.
- gjill, a mock sun, a parhelion.
- grumma, a sort of mirage caused by copious exhalation from the ground.
- grunska, grass growing on a mouldy sheaf.
- gugs, the filth which gathers when gutting [...] fish.
- hekster, a cripple.
- ho, a species of small shark.
- hustak, a big fat woman.
- hwamp, a quirk; the hollow of the inside of the human foot.
- hwini, a hermaphrodite sheep.
- hwirkabus, water in the throat; a disease of sheep.
- jap, a short, choppy sea.
- kabbilabbi, several persons speaking at the same time; confused speaking.
- keeng, to mend a broken crockery by means of pewter clasps set across the fracture.
- kilpik, a little basket made of dokkens.
- kirkasukken, the buried dead as distinguished from those who have a watery grave.
- kist, a word used to scare a cat.
- klaik, a worm with a shelly mouth which bores through wood lying long in the sea.
- krug, to crook or crouch in taking shelter fromn the weather under some high or overhanging thing.
- krugset, to beset in a corner.
- limmer, a bad woman.
- limmerik, the bog asphodel.
- mamgujlla, a midwife.
- manket, worn out with work.
- moder dy, the innate swell of the sea.
- morroless, being one of a pair without the other one.
- mujlik, a handful of rips of bere which have been missed or dropped in shearing, gathered up, tied like a little sheaf, and hung up to dry.
- mulder, to become friable and disintegrated through decay.
- norraleg, a needle with a broken eye.
- ogarhunsh, any frightful or loathsome creature.
- peswisp, a clew of yarn, a fishing-line, or any lineal stuff completely ravelled, so that it is in an inextricable lump; [what Greer Gilman writes].
- pierk, to dress in a finical manner.
- pilli, the penis.
- pinnish, to shrink from the effect of cold.
- pirl, a single particle of sheep's dung.
- pirr, a light breath of wind, such as will make a cat's paw on the water.
- plung, a sound such as is made by drawing a tight cork out of the mouth of a bottle.
- posh, a little fiddle suitable for a child.
- raddikal, a blackguard [hah!].
- sae, a tub with two lugs.
- sangster, a bruni made of sillik livers and bere bursten [if you stuff that in a cod's stomach, it's hakkamuggi, the local form of haggis].
- sanveelter, a disease of horses caused by their eating sand along with their food.
- seg, a hardened part of the skin of the hand caused by constant pressure of a tool in working.
- skalva, snow falling in large drops like scales.
- skurm, an eggshell; anything frail like an eggshell.
- slokken, a satisfying drink.
- slud, an interval of time in which one may get a chance to slip away.
- sluib, the slimy stuff which gathers on dead fish.
- slundi, a rabble.
- snatshard, a pert youngster.
- snori ben, the leg bone of a swine with a double string tied round the middle of it, which, when drawn, makes a snoring sound.
- snud, the twisting movement of the head of a refractory cow.
- sowdian, a big clumsy person; a very corpulent person.
- stoor, dust, especially dust in motion.
- sukkaleg, a stocking without a foot, or with a very ragged foot.
- sukkatu, yarn spoilt in the spinning.
- swarm, to sway a kettle around while it is hanging over the fire so that its contents may be shifted [...] to get equal advantage of the heat.
- taati kro, a receptacle for storing potatoes.
- tairm, a string made of sheep's gut, used for fiddle-strings.
- tamtier, to cause delay by frivolous pretenses.
- voaler, a sea name for the cat.
- wanfine, deterioration from being kept in reserve ['... the grave's a fine and private place ...'].
- waptree, the rod that connects the treadle and the axle of a spinning wheel.
- warbak, an insect that breeds under the skin in cattle.
- whaarm, the edge of the eyelid on which the eyelash grows.
- wirtiglugs, brose made with wirt.